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Second seeds Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto came up with a clinical display against third seeds Debora Jille and Cheryl Senen of the Netherlands to reach the women's doubles final at the Guwahati Masters Super 100 badminton tournament here on Saturday.
Ashwini and Tanisha, who also reached the finals of the Syed Modi International Super 300 tournament last week in Lucknow, defeated their Dutch opponents 21-12, 21-12, as per a press release from the Badminton Association of India (BAI). On Saturday, the Badminton Association of India president and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visited the Saru Sajai Stadium to watch high-quality badminton action. A total of 317 players from 20 countries are participating in the Super 100 event, the first international badminton tournament being held in Assam in 17 years. Sarma later interacted with Badminton World Federation officials and BAI about the plans to develop the sport in the country. The women's doubles pair will be the only Indian representatives on the final day of competition after the host challenge ended in women's singles, and mixed doubles categories on Saturday. In the women's singles semi-final, Malvika Bansod went down 21-12, 21-14 against Thailand's Lalinrat Chaiwan while the men's doubles combination of R Ruban Kumar and Hariharan Amsakarunan lost to Chinese Taipei's Lin Bing-Wei and Su Ching Heng 21-10, 21-19. Earlier in the day, Tanisha teaming up with Dhruv Kapila had lost the mixed doubles semi-final against second seeds Hee Yong Kai Terry and Tan Wei Han Jessica of Singapore 21-18, 21-15. However, the 20-year-old put that disappointment behind when she turned up for the women's doubles semi-final and ably assisted her senior partner to reach their second consecutive summit clash. The Dutch pair managed to keep pace with the Indians till 10-10 in the opening game before Ashwini and Tanisha bagged 11 of the next 13 points. The second game was much more comfortable with the Indian combination always in the lead after bagging five straight points from 1-1. Speaking about their performance on Saturday, Ashwini said, "We had decided to take an aggressive approach and we're happy with the way we executed our game plan." Tanisha admitted that their bodies were feeling a bit tired after reaching their second straight final in two weeks. "But we are excited to reach the final and looking forward to winning the title." (ANI)
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